Welcome to our program. Now the
title of the message today is in the form of a question. It's
a question that our Lord asked some religionists who were trying
to trap Him with questions. The title is, What think ye of
Christ? What think ye of Christ? Now
you know that title, Christ, has to do with the Messiah. When
He addressed His hearers that way, when He said, The Christ,
what think ye of Christ? They would have understood him
to say, well, what do you think of the Messiah? And we're going
to be talking about that. You know, what is your assessment,
your evaluation? What is the value that you place
upon Christ? Now, many people would say, well,
he's my all in all. And they may say that, but are
you sure that's true? And we're going to look at that.
We're going to see from the scriptures what that means. Now, up until
this point, I'm going to be preaching from Matthew 22. I did that last
week on the marriage supper of the king. The king gave his son,
called the Garment of Salvation. Well, after that, many got together,
some of the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the others, began to ask
the Lord questions. And usually, as is the case usually,
religious people are all the time concerned with questions
of no matter. One asked if it was legal to
pay their taxes and of course that's where the Lord said, render
unto Caesar that which belongs to Caesar, render unto God, give
unto God that which belongs to God. One asked him about marriage
in the afterlife and about having children and if a woman had a
woman died or a woman remarried and had other children, whose
children would they be, who would be her husband, things like that
that people just get curious about. And then one asked him
a pretty good question, you know, what is the greatest of the commandments?
And that's when he told them. He said, the first and great
commandment is love the Lord God with all your heart, soul,
mind, and spirit, and love your neighbor as yourself. But then
he turned the tables on them, and he asked them a question.
It says in verse 41, let me read these scriptures to you. It says,
while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying,
What think ye of Christ? Whose son is he? And they say
unto him, the son of David." That was their answer, the son
of David. Now, were they right? Well, they were right. But let's
read on. He says, "...he saith unto them,"
this is verse 43, "...how then doth David," King David, "...in
spirit," or by the Holy Spirit, "...call him Lord, saying, The
Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make
thine enemies thy footstool. If David then call him Lord,
How is he his son? And then it concludes this way
in verse 46. And no man was able to answer
him a word. Neither durst or dare any man
from that day forth ask him any more question. Now that's an
amazing exchange. It's amazing how the Lord of
Glory in many episodes just shut the mouths of those who tried
to trap him, those who were criticizing him, those who were accusing
him. But here he asks a valid question. What think ye of Christ? And I'm asking that to you as
I preach this message. What think ye of Christ? There
are a lot of different ideas in religion concerning the Lord
Jesus Christ. Who he is, what he accomplished,
why he did it, where he is now. There are so many different denominations
now that call themselves Christian. And they all have different views
of mainly two things. Now there are a lot of differences.
in their doctrines, in their practices, in their ceremonies,
and how they worship, what they think. But the main two go back
to these two things. Who is Jesus Christ? And what
did he accomplish on Calvary for his people? Now those are
the two main questions. What think ye of Christ? And
that's what we'll deal with here. But listen, notice what the question
that our Lord posed to them when he said, what think ye of Christ?
Whose son is he? Now they had denied the deity
of Jesus of Nazareth, and they knew that he claimed to be, and
others said that he is the Christ or the Messiah. And so they were
trying, and he had performed the miracles. Everything in the
Old Testament pointed to him. He fulfilled every prophecy and
every type. He had performed miracles. up
to this point. He had raised the dead. He had
healed the sick. He made the lame walk. All of
the miracles. He calmed the storm. He fed the
5,000 with just a few loaves and fishes. All of these miracles
he had done. And they knew that only God could
do that. But they didn't want to say that
He is God. So when he asked that question,
what think ye of Christ? Their answer, and it was an answer
from the Scripture, Well, he's the son of David. Well, then
the Lord turned it on them. Well, then how in the world,
if he's the son of David, how in the world could David call
him Lord? And that means how could David
say that he's God? If he's David's son, how could
David say Lord? And Christ quoted from Psalm
110 there, the Lord said unto my Lord, sit down my right hand.
So here's the issue. How can he be both David's God
and David's son at the same time. Well, they didn't know. They
didn't understand the scriptures. You remember the Lord back in
John chapter 5 in verse 38 and 39. He told him, he says, you
do search the scriptures for in them you think you have eternal
life. He said, they are they which testify of me. He said,
you will not come to me that you might have life. So the issue
was posed there. How could he be both David's
God and David's son, David's Lord and David's son? How could
he be both? And they didn't know. Well, let
me tell you this. Number one, he is both David's
God and David's son. Now that much is true. He is
both God and man in one person. And that's a mind-boggling truth.
That's really a truth that we cannot explain because we've
never seen anything like him. He's so unique. The Lord Jesus
Christ is the God-man. Now that was foretold all the
way back in the Old Testament in the first proclamation of
the Gospel in Genesis chapter 3 and verse 15. When God, pronouncing
the curse upon the serpent, said that he, the seed of woman, he
called Christ, the Messiah, the seed of woman. Well the woman
has no seed and what he was teaching there is that Christ would be
born of the Holy Spirit, not of the flesh of Adam, not in
sin, like we are, and yet he would be both God and man in
one person. Now let me show you that back
in Matthew chapter 1. You know, when the angel came
to Joseph, when Joseph found out that Mary was with child,
And Joseph was considering putting her away, that is, dealing with,
actually what Joseph was going to do was an honorable thing
there because he didn't want his wife to be made a public
spectacle. And the angel came to Joseph,
and I want you to listen to the words, this is Matthew chapter
1 and verse 19, or verse 20 rather. It says, but while he thought,
that is Joseph, while he thought on these things, whether or not
to put Mary away or to move or to whatever, It says, The angel
of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou
son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for
that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost, not of
man. Joseph was not the father in
a physical way. Now, he was the father of the
child because he was married to Mary, but in a physical way.
They had no sexual relationship. Christ was not the seed of Joseph
or the seed of any man. He's the seed of God. He's the
seed of the woman. He's the seed of the Holy Spirit.
His humanity, that is. And he says in verse 21, And
she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name
Jesus. For he shall save his people
from their sin. Now first of all, I want you
to notice this. Joseph did not name the child. God did. Back in the Bible, when
somebody gave somebody else a name, that implied ownership or sonship. Well, He's the Son of God, and
it is God who named Him. And then secondly, His name shall
be called Jesus. Now, I know that name Jesus is
thrown around without any thought today. People talk about Jesus. People name their children Jesus,
all of that. But the name Jesus is seriously
significant here. It is the New Testament derivative
of the name Joshua or Yeshua. You may hear that name. And what
it means is Jehovah our Savior, God our Savior. So Jesus is his
name. and it is connected with the
accomplishment of His work. It's not only who He is, but
it is also what He accomplished. His name shall be called Jesus,
Savior, God our Savior, for He shall, not might, not try, but
He shall save His people from their sins. Now this is important
if we're going to understand the Lord Jesus Christ. What think
ye of Christ? Whose Son is He? He's the Son
of God. He is God in human flesh. John 1 puts it this way. He is
the Word, the living Word, which was before, which was with God,
which is God, without whom nothing was made. And verse 14 says,
the Word was made flesh and dwelt, or tabernacled, among us. The
Lord Jesus Christ is both God and man. Now His humanity had
a beginning, but His deity did not. And we'll talk about that
in just a moment. But what I want to say, His humanity
did have a human genealogy. But it was not through the seed
of man. He was born of the seed of David, because Mary was of
the seed of David. She too, just like Joseph, was
of the tribe of Judah. And that's what God prophesied
thousands of years before, that the Messiah would come from the
tribe of Judah, the kingly tribe. The scepter, in Genesis 49 and
verse 10, it was prophesied by Jacob that the scepter, the rule
of kingship, would not depart from Judah until Shiloh comes. Shiloh being peace, and Christ
is the Prince of Peace. So when it says here, who is
Jesus Christ, when in what thinking of Christ, you must understand
who he is and what he did. When Christ came to this earth,
he came as the substitute, the representative, the kinsman,
redeemer of his people. Not all without exception, but
his people whom the Lord gave to him before the foundation
of the world in divine election. He said in John chapter 6 and
verse 37, he said, All that the Father giveth me shall come to
me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. Now
listen to me, that doesn't shut people out of the kingdom of
God. You shut yourself out by your unbelief. There's not one
sinner who has come to God through Christ that has been turned away
and they never will. But if you come to God through
Christ, you can understand by the scriptural testimony that
you were given to him before the foundation of the world.
That's an amazing truth, isn't it? If that weren't so, there'd
be no salvation. But the Lord Jesus Christ came
to this earth as the substitute of his people to keep the law
for them and to go to the cross of Calvary and die for their
sins charged to him. That's how he saves his people
from their sins. He bore their sins away. That
was pictured in the Old Testament in the lamb and the blood of
animals that was shed. Christ was made sin by imputation,
by the sins of his people charged or laid to his account. And he
died under the justice of God. for their sins, and drank damnation
dry, and paid their debt in full. And he established righteousness
whereby God could be just to justify them. He was buried,
he arose again the third day because he had completed the
work of righteousness and that demands life. He's now at the
right hand of the Father ever living to make intercession for
his people. He shall save his people from their sins. Well,
Matthew goes on in Matthew 1 in verse 22. He says, Now all this
was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord
by the prophets, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child,
and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name
Immanuel, which being interpreted is God with us. Now that's who
Jesus Christ is. He is God with us. He is God-man. Not only was he willing to save
his people from their sins, he is able to save his people from
their sins. Why? Because he is God's man. That's the kind of person that
it took to save his people from their sins. Anyone who is not
God could not be my Savior. And anyone who is not man could
not be my Savior. He had to be God because he had
to be infinite and powerful and able, and he had to be man because
it was men that he came to save. He had to identify with his people
in our name and in our nature without sin. He took on him the
likeness of the seed of Abraham, the seed of Abraham, not the
seed of angels. and he is God and man in one
person. That's who Jesus Christ is, and
he saves his people from their sins. Now over in the book of
Romans, Paul explains this in Romans chapter 1. He speaks of
the gospel here in verse 1. He says, Paul, a servant of Jesus
Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of
God, which he had promised afore or before by his prophets in
the Holy Scriptures. And this gospel, verse 3, concerns
His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, which was made of the seed of
David according to the flesh. That speaks of His humanity.
He was very man, a very man, as one old preacher said, without
sin. He came through Mary, the seed of woman, without the aid
of man and without the sin of man. He wasn't born of Adam.
Everyone who's born of Adam is born dead in trespasses and sin. But the humanity of Christ was
created by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin. And that's
why the angel, when he appeared to the shepherds, called it that
holy thing. There was nothing else to call
him. He was so unique and His humanity was accomplished in
the womb of the Virgin without sin, made of the seed of David
according to the flesh. And then it says in verse 4,
"...and declared to be the Son of God with power according to
the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection of the dead." You
see, His humanity was created, but His deity was not. Nothing
divine or deity can be created. He always was, always is, and
always will be. He's called the Alpha and the
Omega. The beginning and the end. He
said this in John chapter 8 when he spoke to the Pharisees. He
said, before Abraham was, I am. That speaks of his deity. Now
he is God and man in one person. That's who Jesus Christ is. Now
what think ye of Christ? Now there are people who call
themselves Christian. who deny his deity. Well, my
friend, they have a very, very low opinion of Christ. I asked
one of them who came to my door one time, I said, do you believe
Jesus Christ, I asked him this first, I said, do you worship
the Lord Jesus Christ? And they said, yes. I said, do
you believe he is God? And they said, no. And I said,
well, you're an idolater then. My friend, if you worship anyone
who is less than God, that's idolatry. God alone is to be
worshipped. Well, Jesus Christ is God. Now,
anyone who calls himself Christian, who denies his humanity, they
too deny they have a very low opinion of Jesus Christ. You
see, they don't think of him at all as Savior. They may say
they do, but they don't. The book of 1 John deals with
that with false preachers who denied his humanity. And this
is the issue. What think ye of Christ? You
know, we read there in Matthew chapter 1 how he was named. Well,
his name identifies and distinguishes him. There are so many of the
Psalms that speak of his name. I'll give you just one example.
In Psalm 116 and verse 13, the psalmist writes, I will take
the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. Well,
we learned back in Matthew chapter 1, verse 21, His name is Jesus. For He shall save His people
from their sins. His blood and His righteousness
secured and demands the entire salvation of all for whom He
lived and died, was buried, and rose again the third day. There'll
be none in hell for whom He died, my friend. His name is Jesus.
And his name is Immanuel, for he is God with us, God in human
flesh. Back over in the book of Isaiah
chapter 9, this was prophesied. The prophet Isaiah was given
a prophecy to Judah, the southern kingdom in Jerusalem, of the
coming of the Messiah. And in verse 6 it says this,
for unto us a child is born. Now that's speaking of the humanity,
the sinless humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then it goes
on, it says, unto us a son is given. That speaks of his deity
as the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God. The child was
born because that child is human flesh without sin. But the Son
was not born. The Son has no beginning and
no end. He is the Son of God and He has
always been in existence just as the Father and the Spirit.
He's co-equal in every attribute of nature with the Father and
the Spirit. He is God. But Isaiah goes on
in verse 6. He says, For unto us a child
is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon
his shoulder. Now, what does that mean? Well,
that means that the establishment and the fulfillment and the formation
of the government of God, the kingdom of God, the everlasting
covenant of grace was placed squarely upon the shoulders of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And we could put that in so many
ways. It means all of salvation was conditioned upon Him. Now,
here's another issue. What? Thank ye of Christ. If
salvation is conditioned on the sinner in any way, to any degree,
at any time, then you cannot say it was all put upon Christ's
shoulder, and therefore you have a very, very low, a deadly opinion
of Christ. The government shall be upon
His shoulder. The whole blessedness of the
Kingdom of God, the whole salvation of God's people, His elect, spiritual
Israel, a people out of every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation,
sinners who cannot save themselves, who do not deserve salvation,
and who cannot earn salvation. Their whole salvation was placed
squarely upon Christ, conditioned on Him. And then it goes on to
say, His name shall be called Wonderful. He's a wonderful Savior,
Counselor. All the Word, all the wisdom
we need comes through Him. He's the mighty God. God in human
flesh. He's the everlasting Father.
Now God the Father and God the Son are distinct in the Trinity.
They're one and the same in Deity. But Christ is called the everlasting
Father in the sense that He is the one who saved His people
from their sins. And He's the Prince of Peace.
He brought peace between God and His people. That's what salvation
is all about. Reconciliation between God and
His people. How was that done? 2 Corinthians
5.21 says it. For God made him sin, Christ
who knew no sin, for us that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. It is his shed blood and his
righteousness alone that is the ground of our peace with God.
In verse 7 it says of the increase of his government and peace there
shall be no end. Upon the throne of David and
upon his kingdom to order it and to establish it with judgment
and with justice from henceforth even forever the zeal of the
Lord of hosts will perform him." That's who Jesus Christ is. He's
the mighty God. Jeremiah chapter 23 and verse
5 is another prophecy of the Lord Jesus Christ. He says, Behold,
the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David
a righteous branch, That speaks of his humanity now, sinless
humanity, through Mary, a descendant of David. And a king shall reign
and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.
And in his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell
safely. That's spiritual Israel, spiritual Judah. And this is
his name whereby he shall be called the Lord our righteousness. The Hebrew term for that is Jehovah,
Sid Canoe. In Jeremiah 33, in verse 15,
it calls the church, the Lord, our righteousness. In other words,
the church, the bride of Christ, takes His name. And then, the
Bible teaches that whosoever shall call upon the name of the
Lord shall be saved. In the book of Romans, chapter
10, in verse 13, the apostle makes it clear, in verse 14,
He says, How then shall they call on him in whom they have
not believed? And how shall they believe in
him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without
a preacher? He goes on in verse 17, he says,
Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. My
friend, it's by the word of God in the preaching of the gospel
that God reveals to our minds and our hearts who Jesus Christ
is. When the Lord asked that question
to the Pharisees over in Matthew 22, He knew their hearts. He
knew they had no high opinion of the true Christ. He knew they
didn't understand that He must be both God and man and one person. He knew that they did not understand
that He had to come, Christ had to come and fulfill the law for
His people. They thought they could fulfill
the law. They were going about trying to establish a righteousness
of their own. They didn't see him as the God-man,
mediator, the one eternal Savior who would come in time and establish
the only righteousness based upon which God could save a sinner. What think ye of Christ? That's
the issue. What think ye of His blessed
work upon the cross? My friend, if salvation was not
accomplished at Calvary by the Lord Jesus Christ, if you don't
see it that way and understand that all of salvation is of the
Lord and by His grace in Christ, then you don't have a very high
opinion of Him. And low opinions of Him are deadly. If you don't believe on His name,
that which identifies and distinguishes Him as the sovereign Lord of
glory, the one and only true Savior of sinners, then you don't
think much. of the Lord Jesus Christ. Believe
on Him and you shall be saved. I hope this has been helpful
to your understanding of the Gospel and the Scriptures. If
you'd like to get a copy of this message, please listen to the
announcer and he'll give you the details. The title of this
message is, What Think Ye of Christ? And I hope you'll join
us next week for another message from God's Word.